Lab 5

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Animal Diversity lab


  • This lab will be reviewing different classifications of different animals. And what is an animal anyways?
  • You will pick an animal (from a collection of samples provided in class), and then do research on it.
  • I will be available for questions at Ellis library from 10:30am-2pm on Wednesday (2/16) before class. (If you want to meet before that, just email me and we'll set up a time.)
    • I will be sitting at the tables to the left of the information desks on the 1st floor, above the Bookmark cafe.
    • I will be available for questions on researching, references, and making sure can find answers to all your questions.


  • RESEARCH:

    • You will follow the worksheet in your lab manual, and answer all the questions.
      • Grading: I will grade you on your worksheet answers (20 points), and I will give partial credit if you can provide evidence for your answer, even if it is not the answer I am looking for. You do not need to present all of this evidence, but you only need to present your answer.
    • You will then prepare a presentation (powerpoint, regular chalk, etc.) of this material
      • You will be graded (20 points also) on your presentation and listening only (so you won't lose points for presenting 'wrong' info). You will be graded on the clarity, presentation of all information, and ability to reasonably stay around the 5 minute limit (you will start to lose points at 10 minutes).
      • You will also be graded on your ability to listen to other presentations (1/20 points).

    • NOTES:

      • For the first few questions, your answer will be single-word answers, for example Symmetry will be either 'asymmetrical', 'radial', or 'bilateral'.
      • Segmentation is a yes or no question, and depends on the phylum.
        • Segmentation refers to the repetition of tissue in the organism as an embryo. A non-segmented animal, on the other hand, has one element that makes up the entire body (e.g., a jellyfish). A segmented animal, on the other hand, have embryonic tissue segments that will develop into a functional unit, although the adult form of an organism is not a good guide to segmentation (eg, octopus).
        • Since segmentation is a fundamental trait for animals, for any phylum, all of the animals in that phylum will usually either be segmented or have no segmentation.
        • For example, Life History is not a single-word answer. Give at least a couple examples of the life history (life stages, metamorphasis?, life span, etc.) of your organism.
      • Biological level of organization
        • What is the most complex level of organization of your organism? Do they have integrated organ systems that work together? This would be organ-system-level. Do they just have organs that work independently of one another? This would be organ-level. Do they not have organs, but they do have different tissues? This is the tissue level of organization. Or do they have only aggregates of cells that do not differentiate into tissue? This is cellular level of organization.
      • Germ layers:
        • Germ layers refer to whether the organism has 2 or 3 layers of different tissue as an embryo. As a fertilized egg divides more and more, the bunches of cells eventually differentiate into different layers of cells. The three possible layers are ectoderm (the outer layer of cells), mesoderm (the middle layer of cells), or endoderm (the innermost layer of cells). This differentiation of layers in the embryo may eventually turn into a hollow ball (called the blastula), after the cells in the ball start moving inside itself. All animals except sponges will develop different cell layers. The hollow inside becomes the coelom (pronouced see-lum) in the adult, and organisms that have coeloms are called 'coelomates'. If the organism has no hollow inside, it's call an 'acoelomate'. The animals with these different layers can be organized further into organisms that have an ectoderm and an endoderm (dipoblastic), or organisms that have the ecto-, endo-, and meso-derm (tripoblatic).




  • PRESENTATION:

    • How can I present so much info in 4-5 minutes?
      • Don't worry about going into a lot of detail for each topic, but at least present all your information.
      • Go into detail only on two or three specific topics.
      • Tips on preparing slides:
        • Be clear and concise -- use short phrases of information.
        • The more slides, the longer your presentation.
          • At 30 seconds a slide, a 4-5 minute presentation would have no more than 10 slides. So 10 slides is a lot.
        • If you read from your slides, read only short phrases; avoid long sentences.

  • REFERENCES:

    • You will need a total of 5 references -- at least three published sources (books, journal articles, etc.). Websites will not count for these sources.
      • Websites sources should be reputable, that is, do not cite from wikipedia. You can, though, cite from an online encyclopedia.
      • If your source is from a book that is online (books.google.com), it counts as a published source -- just write the reference based on the author, year, title, and publisher (as described below)

    • SEACH TIPS:

        • If you search on google.com for websites, you can restrict your searches to only educational institutions by typing site:.edu in the search line. (Use the colon and then the period and then 'edu')
          • So if you were searching for the starfish information, you would type:
          • starfish site:.edu
          • starfish site:.edu
      • Some good sources for journal articles:
        • scholar.google.com
        • Usually the journal articles are pretty complicated, but if you read the introduction, there is usually some basic information about the organism there.
      • Source for books:
        • books.google.com
          • Click on the book and it will give you the book page (this is the book page for the dictionary of fungi).
          • To find the reference information for a book, click on the 'About this book' link in the upper left hand corner of the book page, then go to the bottom and look for all the reference info (publisher, year, etc.).

    • SEARCH TIPS #2:

      • Use these sources by typing in search terms, and use quotes to search for a phrase. For example search for "common name" if you want to find the common name, don't just use the words common name.
      • A good site for finding some animal info:

    • HOW TO REFERENCE:

      • When you present a bit of information that you got from a book or journal or website, put the author and date of publication in parentheses.
        • eg: Mollusks have the ability to learn (Hegner 1990) and they provide 4-5 weeks of parental care to their young (Gibbs et al. 2003).
        • If there are more than 2 authors, you can just put the first author's name and then 'et al.' afterwards, which is latin for 'and others'.
      • At the end of your paper, write the full citation and include this information:
        • Book: Author name. Publication date. Title of book. Publisher.
          • Hegner, RW. College zoology. Macmillian, New York, NY. 1912.
        • Journal: Author name. Publication date. Title of article. Journal title and the volume and number of the journal issue.
          • Gibbs AG, Fukuzato F, Matzkin LM. 2003. Evolution of water conservation mechanisms in Drosophila. The Journal of Experimental Biology 206, 1183-1192.

  • PRESENTATIONS:

    • If you prepare a powerpoint, you must email it to me before class starts. This will allow me to load the powerpoint on the class computer.
    • Otherwise, you can use this file (AD-blank.doc) as a template, and present it with chalk on the board.

  • QUIZ/WORKSHEET GRADES:

    • Lab 2 is due on Wednesday, and Lab 4 worksheet is due Wednesday also. We will begin to do presentations then, also.
    • Some grades on blackboard were wrong as of Tuesday afternoon, but I have corrected them as of Tuesday evening, so if you noticed that your grades changed, that is why. The grades I have on your quiz and worksheets are the correct grades.